Report on local teacher preparation colleges raked over coals

Local teacher preparation colleges are viewing a controversial report by the Washington, D.C.-based National Council on Teacher Quality as something significantly less than constructive criticism.

The report, released Tuesday in conjunction with U.S. News & World Report, claims to have done paper reviews of teacher preparation programs at more than 1,100 colleges nationwide and found the results “dismal,” according to one press release. It looked at four areas: admission criteria, preparation in subject areas, practice teaching and evidence of outcomes.

Only about 10 percent of the colleges gave NCTQ researchers material they were looking for when they initially asked. The organization spent $700,000 filing open records requests with public colleges and universities and ultimately scaled down what they requested, according to NCTQ President Kate Walsh.

The study looked at undergraduate and graduate elementary and secondary programs at the nation's top 200 producers of teachers, but within smaller schools, the study randomly chose which programs to consider. Programs were omitted at both Fitchburg and Worcester state universities, for instance.

In some cases, especially with private colleges, the organization appealed to instructors, students and school districts for information. What students gathered for them from private institutions was “a total crap shoot,” Ms. Walsh said by telephone, adding that “we had to go with what we got.”

In Massachusetts, only 9 percent of colleges gave NCTQ what they were looking for. The organization filed open records requests with public universities, and the state college system initially charged a collective fee of $22,000 for the records, according to NCTQ. The organization successfully appealed the charge to the state's supervisor of public records.

Good teachers are graduating from the programs, Ms. Walsh said, but the research tried to determine whether standards were in place to make sure teachers are uniformly well-trained. “This is about the design,” she said, the “necessary but not sufficient condition.”

According to the report, it has the endorsement of state Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education Mitchell D. Chester. U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan was quoted in a Wall Street Journal story about the report as saying, “Teachers deserve better support and better training than teachers' colleges today provide, and school districts should be able to make well-informed hiring choices.”

The reviews locally have been less glowing. The State Universities of Massachusetts put out a joint statement saying that “the quality of research in the NCTQ report is so poor that it is of little to no value in evaluating the quality of our educator preparation programs.”

Worcester State University Associate Dean of Education Raynold Lewis and Fitchburg State University Dean of Education Pamela K. Hill said the study missed the feedback students get on their student teaching. “It's tremendously in error,” in its evaluation of Fitchburg State, Ms. Hill said.

Mr. Lewis said state universities were asked to provide a syllabus, but he said those are not an accurate representation of everything covered in the classroom. He also noted that while the researchers looked into elementary programs, some of the course material they were after, such as how to teach emerging readers, is covered in Worcester State's early childhood program, which covers preschool through Grade 2.

Clark University decided not to participate a year ago after consulting with colleagues. “They didn't feel that the methodology ... would give a fair and accurate picture of preparation at our institution,” said Thomas A. Del Prete, director of the Adam Institute for Urban Teaching and School Practice at Clark.

He added that the college can measure its success informally by the through the work of its graduates, such as those who teach at the nationally-recognized University Park Campus School.

Clark and Assumption College were included in the study but did not provide enough information for NCTQ to give them an overall rating. Programs that produce fewer than 25 teachers a year, including those at Anna Maria College, Becker College, College of the Holy Cross, Nichols College and Worcester Polytechnic Institute, were not included.

The report's recommendations include increasing the admissions requirements for teachers. It's a perennial discussion at Fitchburg State, where undergraduates must have at least a 2.5 GPA to get in and graduates must have at least a 2.8. Except for freshman year, students in both programs need a 3.0 to progress, as they do at Worcester State.

Other recommendations in the report include using data on novice teachers to hold programs accountable, basing state funding on the quality of teacher preparation provided, limiting the number of teacher licenses available each year and lower tuition for high-need areas such as special education and science, technology, engineering and math preparation programs.

Overall, the report is designed to be a “consumer tool” for teachers-to-be, their parents and employers.

The full report is available through www.nctq.org.

Its eight funders in Massachusetts included the Boston Foundation, and its 10 funders nationally include the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York.